With Super Bowl XLIX (how many Americans can quickly translate Roman Numerals?) just days away, the sports pages (even some science and editorial pages) are passionately afroth with Deflategate chatter. Was the football intentionally underinflated during the first half of the Patriots/Colts game? Hands are wringing! The world trembles with the possibility that an NFL team might be cheating!
In 1957, C. Northcote Parkinson, British naval historian and author of over 60 books, published the international best-seller, Parkinson’s Law, a series of trenchant and oft-humorous essays, which made him a name in public administration and management. The eponymous adage explained in the titular essay as Parkinson’s Law is: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Less well known, but just as pithy and important, is Parkinson’s Law of Triviality.
Now also known as “bikeshedding,” Parkinson’s Law of Triviality states that the more complex an issue, the less time spent on it. Continue reading “Deflategate and Bikeshedding”